Why World of Warcraft is so popular from a psychological perspective

If "Legend" created the first legend of the online game in China, then World of Warcraft may be the peak of the history of online games, only to be imitated, has never been surpassed. What kind of magic makes a network game after 10 years, in many shouting like Warcraft, beyond the new tourism slogan, still attracts countless fans into Azeroth.　　This paper tries to interpret the popularity of World of Warcraft from the perspective of psychology. First of all: MMORPG elements are built on a virtual world, compared to the real world, the virtual world is simple and straightforward, the role of the game is often a surreal ability, and all can be displayed through the data and even image: a day of meals only need to master a rub can easily solve, A portal can reach the other side of the ocean anytime, anywhere ...　　Players need to do, just as far as possible to act as a hero, and throw away the different players, the role of everything can be ranked, equipment and other data revealed. Admittedly or not, this is the secret to most role-playing games today, even if most players are unaware of the fact that a simple, direct, figurative world, combined with a wide variety of abilities, can greatly satisfy a player's sense of control, which is precisely the complex,　　Real bone sense of the real world is scarce----is also the Harry Potter series selling special sales, network novels surging reasons. The secret is that every game developer knows, like the public version of the Tai Quan, but the ordinary people play out is Huaquanxiutui, Feng resorted to Tiger Tiger. Compared to other online games, World of Warcraft has been more successful in the construction of virtual worlds, making it easier for players to experience higher levels of generation in the game, and to have a deeper recognition of the growth and experience of the role of the game. This is precisely what many other games cannot do-not just the attitude, but the ability.　　Roughly speaking, the player's higher sense of World of Warcraft is mainly from two aspects: online and offline. First, the online World of Warcraft has a grand, complete but also full of details of the story of the background, every common NPC is a story of people, each race is a historical torrent, not like some games tens of thousands of words to tell a pale boring manual, or out of nowhere to some inexplicable wonderful game elements; In addition, for the game content of World of Warcraft itself, small to walk slow speed, the consistency of the actual time, the change of the weather (very nostalgic when playing the trumpet in the Tirisfal woodland where the pattering rain scene), the appearance and origin of weapons and equipment, and so on, large to the game task-related one after another plump task image,　　Or the story of touching or blood, and the different geomorphic features of the game map, and so on! Second, offline, from blizzard to players around the World of Warcraft has too much interaction: The Thick of the official World of Warcraft novel and a lot of people's novels, Blizzard of all kinds of lovely dolls, frost sadness, fans of homemade figurines, Tao, countless about Warcraft's diffusepaintings, videos and even influential like "Alliance Warriors", "Internet addiction War" film, NGA, few mmoppg can have so much influence. It's the myriad details of World of Warcraft and the colorful interactions that make it more than just a 0 and a 1 game, at least in the minds of many wower, Azeroth is somewhere in the universe. [Page] 2nd: On the basis of the sense of control, the strengthening of the game behavior is to keep the game attracted by the law. Reinforcement is a very important concept in behavioral modeling, is the reward process that accompanies the behavior to help the behavior recur, which includes positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement and reward, which increases the probability of behavior, and the reward is positive reinforcement; negative reinforcement refers to the accompanying line Eliminate and avoid some unpleasant stimuli and situations.　　Obviously, in MMORPG, the main use of positive reinforcement, the simplest and most common positive reinforcement is to do the task, kill the monster to get experience and the reward of goods, this is almost all the MMOPRG game of the main melody or can not open the magic spell. A MMORPG game, from beginning to end without killing strange, task, PK (athletics), the player is not doing these things, is doing these things on the way, the difference is to kill what strange, how to kill strange, how PK, and weapons, equipment, goods, grades, skills in the final analysis for its services. To some extent, similar to the World of Warcraft game is a Kill strange, task, pk continuous reinforcement chain. To ensure that the game is to fight the resistance of the chain is not interrupted, rather than kimchi games, kill more and more, and then the level of capping, equipment to the end, boring days are coming.　　When I first played World of Warcraft finally rose to 60, thinking that finally repair into fruition, the results of a team of a "master" sentence: "Level 60, World of Warcraft has just begun," I completely back to the original. And keep the strengthening chain uninterrupted, to put it bluntly is also simple: let the reinforcement of the player's good, intensive process fun and colorful. First of all, the reinforcement, in the online game, nothing more than weapons, equipment, goods and grades. When the player first enters the game to start the game, the Killing monster does the task and so on any reward must let the player think is worth, and anticipates the next enhancement, otherwise strengthens the chain will weaken until breaks, the player discards the game.　　The most common hardening process is to do the task, kill the same level of the monster often get high itself a few items, although temporarily can not use, but to the player within reach of the expectation, continue the game. Cast the player is good, that is, the player thinks "value", so, the quality of reinforcement is a difficult problem, too bad too good will reduce the player's potential for the game evaluation. Too bad reinforcement, such as cutting corners in shape, poor art, low-level and advanced equipment in addition to data and halo there is no difference, no freshness; too popular, a hand, the main street goods are not unique (in some games, the role in addition to the name, the other is a mold; too good reinforcement, players do not need to consumeIt takes a lot of energy to get the top prize, though it makes the player very excited, but not conducive to the game, a few skills swept eight Liuhe, no challenge no stimulation, easy aesthetic weakness, upgrade too easy, capping series is a complex double digits can even hundreds, reduce the upgrade of the sense of achievement has lost the significance of the level of existence ... ...　　and play a single open cheating, invincible after the world is a lonely. In short, the choice of reinforcement is balance and timing, it is a tiptoe to pick the delicious apple, and Apple to the size of the moderate. Too big, fed don't want to eat not to say, and to other smaller Apple lose interest, too small to see, big change apple tree, anyway, more trees. World of Warcraft is relatively good at this point, in particular, and the domestic game than: to the most eye-catching weapons, for example, not to talk about beauty, beauty is the aesthetic taste of the problem, kimchi radish, only in World of Warcraft weapons type, the game is rarely outfits, and the name, explanation is also very detailed and human nature, this better "cheat" Players, this is a real weapon rather than data, at home on the contrary, as if 18 weapons are only 18 names, and then under the name is a row of poor data, the imagination of the game production is really so bad, not necessarily.　　The ideal reinforcement chain is a spiral upward structure that has not changed and becomes only a form. Besides the hardening process, the player in the game process, kill the blame to do task PK, the best fun, and choose a variety. It's good to understand, but it's not good to do. Many domestic games are either committed to kill strange and kill strange Korean disease, this does not say much; or as the data is slow, some games, a simple task is to kill 100 chickens, kill 200 wolves, a task chain down, became a butcher.　　I am most impressed is playing Shi Yuzhu's journey, one after another to kill 250 dangerous leopard task, really do not know who who put who when 250. In the same way, World of Warcraft can see the fine work behind them in the hardening process: take the task system as an example, the task type of World of Warcraft is diverse (killing strange, sending letters, fetching things, looking for someone, collecting, etc., this is now popular); The task is difficult, not let you kill hundreds of monsters, and choose a lot; Even if you do not see the task text, you can probably know the plot, the monster model is diverse, No 10-level monster has evolved into a 50-class elite, even makeup does not draw. [Page] 3rd: The acquisition of ownership and identity, admittedly, if according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, in addition to physiological needs, online games more or less in other layers need to be reflected. But one of the great features of online gaming is that the game itself is a community of players interacting, the need for ownership and identity in the network game Unlimited amplification, coupled with the mainstream network game is the young people, itself to be more sensitive to identity, in the game, a virtual game role can easily integrate into a group, and feel "everyone" is the same experience. The need for ownership and identification, reflected in reality, is not difficult to see sexBut it is easy to see that the game is often individual development to small groups, especially on the university campus, a network game may be from a person started to a dormitory or several bedrooms. And the sense of belonging and identity depends on the game's team cohesion to the player, but few games can be like World of Warcraft, can make players proud of being wower. Some people may say that there is no similar to CSER, but CS is a competitive game, the nature and compared to the lack of technical content of WOW can not be compared. World of Warcraft can do this, there must be the right place.　　There is no doubt that this is inseparable from the overall quality of World of Warcraft and marketing, but here only on the unique setting of the World of Warcraft game itself on the impact of player cohesion. First, the set of replicas is a big reason, although the replica is not World of Warcraft initiative, but by the World of Warcraft to carry forward the vast number of domestic games now have a copy of the set, but the picture cat Tiger, to sword three for example, the replica of the martial arts culture is indeed innovative, but bugs, loopholes flying, the results of the players can directly disregard　　Straight to boss, is the slaughter of the first behavior model. The Secret of World of Warcraft is the "balance of difficulty" and "career mix", the game copy player will pass, but never let you be so cheap (although this is a bit out of line with the current era of compaction, but not for the speed of the brush up, step by step to come over the player is true, At the same time for the World of Warcraft now such a climate of silence. The professional collocation makes the player have different responsibilities in the copy process, and cannot be replaced easily.　　This just fits in with the psychological part of group cohesion: when members of a group have a sense of honor and honor, and there is external pressure, the most likely to form a high degree of cohesion. In different games, too simple replica settings, World of Warcraft to the game small group (team or union) a pressure, challenge, and a variety of replication environment, and access to the copy of the player everyone has irreplaceable role, and then experience difficulties and even the regiment out, and finally overcome the copy of the Boss, and get enhanced rewards.　　The final result of each step in the middle can produce a batch of wower. Second, the sense of belonging of the World of Warcraft comes from the frequency and depth of the player's communication. World of Warcraft players in the game not only talk about the game, there are more important things in life, World of Warcraft is no longer just a game platform, but also more like a friend community, and the real life of the players inextricably linked together.　　To do this, it can be described as a, Murphy, because of the difficulty of the World of Warcraft replica, resulting in the player can not solve the problem by typing, gradually developed to team Speak,ak and other teams voice tools, line online voice communication than the individual game within the text exchange, nature is not the same effect. As a Chinese player in World of Warcraft, I did have a crush on World of Warcraft for a while. I used to joke about playingWarcraft, the general RPG games are eye. Here, I just from a player's point of view with psychological knowledge to analyze the World of Warcraft popular, to entertain interested friends. (Digging the shell net)